Cali

Palm Springs

We met up with Kristen's uncle Mike at the In 'N Out in Thousand Palms, CA. It was Kristen's first time so she got excited and then ate it and realized, as so many have done before her, ohh, it really is just a burger joint. The kids were pretty fried by this point and after getting back to Mike's condo at the base of this beautiful dirt mountain the kids played with some of the toys around his house and quickly crashed. The phone rang once in the room where Kate was sleeping and she woke up so terrified she was shaking. She recounted the experience to me saying 'and then the phone BRIIIIING! BRIIIIIING!' all while shaking her hands in the air to demonstrate how incredibly loud and starteling the whole experience was. She was so comical I was really trying hard not to laugh as she tried to gain my sympathy as to how traumatic the whole event was for her.

After she fell asleep, Kristen and I snuck down to the hot tub and melted away the driving pains. It was pretty glorious. I updated the blog and then crashed hard.

The next morning Kate woke up before everyone and I realized that if I didn't roll out of bed with her I'd have two kids awake, so we quietly dressed and snuck out to a local coffee shop called Koffi. We drove into downtown Palm Springs, which was adorable, it had a mix of new boutique style shops and authentically retro shops from the 50's. In the shop, I asked them if they roasted their own and the guy replied "It's such a secret, I don't even know where we roast it." Weird. What coffee shop isn't proud of their roaster? I got suspicious. I ordered an Ethiopia specialty estate, and got a specialty Panama estate for Kristen. The Panama estate was the hands down winner, I've never had an Ethiopia that lacked berry notes like that one did, but it was passable.

Back at Mike's we had breakfast and hung out while we waited for Jack to wake up. The poor guy is so messed up with all the traveling, that he slept in til 8:45, which was 10:45 on Arkansas time. After we finally got going we went to Sheild's Date Garden and I picked up a bunch of dates so that I can make 'cheap dates' - an amazing stuffed date recipe we snagged from "Table Mesa' in Bentonville. It's pitted dates stuffed with cream cheese, blue cheese, a little bit of cayanne and then wrapped in bacon before baking so that the insides are melty and the outside is crispy. They are AMAZING!

We were running a little late at that point, so we just jumped back on the road and headed off to San Clemente where Kristen had a job interview by interviewing families for a promotional video for a surf ministry. While she worked that the kids and I went down to Salt Creek beach. As soon as we hit the bottom of the stairs leading down, Jack squirmed out of my arms and plopped himself down and began grabbing fistfuls of sand. He was incredibly content. Kate, however, wanted to go to the water, so I picked him up - much to his anger and frustration - and we walked to where the water lapped at their toes with each small wave. Kate LOVED it, Jack, however, plopped down every time the tide would pull a wave back out and kept running back to where he could just sit and dig. So, with there just being one of me, I followed him and made Kate come with me. We dug holes in the wet sand until there was a little pool of water. Jack fit just perfectly, so he plopped his little bottom down in the middle of it and splashed happily. I helped Kate build a second pool, and then they took turns climbing from one pool to the other and digging. We did that for about an hour. Then we trekked back up the steep hill to the parking lot and I made a comical attempt to remove sand from their sun-screened bodies before just sitting their sandy bodies down with snacks while we waited for Kristen.

After she returned we drove up to Costa Mesa for dinner with those of mine and John's Siloam Springs small group who had moved to SoCal. We met at the Swogger's house and the Bethkes and Carrolls met us their with their friend Josh. Kath made a great spread of lasagna and accessories and we sat around talking and laughing all night. Jack went down while we were there, but Kate was just deliriously running around giggling. Afterwards, we drove down to Irvine to stay with the Hills for the night. The kids sleep schedule was officially OFF and they didn't get to sleep until 11 pm - or 1 am Arkansas time. I was pulling out my hair over that one!!

We got up at 6:45 and Brian got us donuts from a local shop and we got to hang out with he, Janet and Natalie before heading off. Kate announced that Natalie, who is 7, was her 'best-friend'. Natalie, confused, looked at her and replied 'um, I just met you!', and then the next morning she walked up to the room Natalie was sleeping in and told Kristen "shhh, my best friend is sleeping in there." Lol, apparently, she was a big hit :)

From there we drove to Kean coffee, where I had the most amazing mocha of my life. Pictures are sure to follow. It was a Mayan mocha, which I've had before, but the smoothness of the espresso and the slight savoryness of the mocha were just amazing. Hopefully we'll be able to hit up another local of theirs before we head out! I'll write more about driving down to Chula Vista and back up to Pasadena tomorrow, I'm spent!!